Fresh wind drifts are the most obvious of today's avalanche problems. Easy to detect by their rounded appearance, they'll also be easy to manage this morning, breaking around or just below your skis, board, or sled. As winds increase I expect the drifting to become more widespread and slabs will break deeper and wider than you might anticipate. Once initiated, today's shallow slabs can quickly get out of hand, breaking into deeper buried weak layers as they crash down onto the slope below and they'll be packing a punch.

So far we haven't heard of any slides breaking into old snow in our neighborhood, but the structure of our snowpack remains eerily suspect. The setup is simple... strong snow overlies a layer of weak, sugary facets now buried in the mid portion of our snowpack. Unless you're willing to take a few minutes to dig into the snow and investigate, avalanche conditions may seem manageable on the surface. Unfortunately, this type of composition feels strong under our skis, board, or sled, and allows to get well out onto steep slopes before they avalanche.

We're seeing the in your face telltale signs of unstable snow coming together... booming collapses, shooting cracks, and avalanches are natures way of saying the snowpack is sketchy If you're getting onto steep, upper elevation slopes, especially those with an easterly component to their aspect, carefully assess the snowpack and think about the consequences of triggering a slide.

Click here to view our observations along with a short video explaining what we're seeing.

Ted points to our problem child... a layer of weak snow now buried a couple feet deep in our snowpack.